Recording systems for breed improvement and production management in transition and developing countries. A dairy industry perspective.

Different milk production systems are briefly described comparing various countries: South American countries (characterised by a system in which cows graze privately owned natural and planted pastures) and other areas like Sub-Saharan Africa, where three quarters of the milk is produced by cattle, with common property natural pastures, providing most of the feed. In Asia, cattle and buffaloes produce equal shares of the total milk supply. The tight relations existing between crops and livestock are briefly summarised, providing a production system that offers more control over feed inputs than in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist systems and give a better base to facilitate recording and management.